and others, were as follows: the disease began very suddenly with a sense of apprehension,

followed by cold shivers (sometimes very violent), giddiness, headache, and severe pains in the
neck, shoulders and limbs, with great exhaustion. After the cold stage, which might last from half an
hour to three hours, the hot and sweating stage followed. The characteristic sweat broke out
suddenly without any obvious cause. Accompanying the sweat, or after, was a sense of heat,
headache, delirium, rapid pulse, and intense thirst. Palpitation and pain in the heart were frequent
symptoms. No skin eruptions were noted by observers including Caius. In the final stages, there was
either general exhaustion and collapse, or an irresistible urge to sleep, which Caius thought to be
fatal if the patient was permitted to give way to it. One attack did not offer immunity, and some
people suffered several bouts before dying.[1] The disease tended to occur in summer and early
autumn.

Sweating sickness first came to the attention of physicians at the beginning of the reign of Henry VII
in 1485. There is no known definitive statement that the sickness was present in troops landing
at Milford Haven. Soon after the Battle of Bosworth, Henry arrived in London on 28 August, where
the disease first broke out on 19 September 1485.[6] There, it killed several thousand people by its
conclusion in late October that year.[7] Among those killed were two lord mayors, six aldermen, and
three sheriffs.[8]
This alarming malady soon became known as the sweating sickness. It was regarded as being quite
distinct from the Black Death, the pestilential fever or other epidemicspreviously known, not only by
the special symptom that gave it its name, but also by its extremely rapid and fatal course.
The sweating sickness reached Ireland in 1492, when the Annals of Ulster record the death
of James Fleming, Baron of Slane from the pláigh allais, newly come to Ireland.[9] The Annals of
Connacht also record this obituary,[10] and the Annals of the Four Masters record "an unusual plague
in Meath…" of 24 hours' duration;[11] and any one who survived it beyond that period recovered. It did
not attack infants or little children. However, Freeman in his footnote to the Annals of
Connacht denies that this "plague" was the sweating sickness, despite the similarity of the names.
He thought it to be "Relapsing or Famine Fever"—possibly typhus.